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United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
Testimony:
Before the Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security,
Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate:
For Release on Delivery:
Expected at 10:00 a.m. EST:
Tuesday, July 24, 2012:
Student and Exchange Visitor Program:
DHS Needs to Take Actions to Strengthen Monitoring of Schools:
Statement of Rebecca Gambler, Acting Director:
Homeland Security and Justice:
GAO-12-895T:
Chairman Schumer, Ranking Member Cornyn, and Members of the
Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to discuss the findings from our June
2012 report assessing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE)
oversight of the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP).[Footnote
1] ICE, within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), is
responsible for managing SEVP, including ensuring that foreign
students studying in the United States comply with the terms of their
admission into the country. ICE also certifies schools as authorized
to accept foreign students in academic and vocational programs. As of
January 2012, more than 850,000 active foreign students were enrolled
at over 10,000 certified schools in the United States. In addition,
ICE manages the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System
(SEVIS), which assists the agency in tracking and monitoring certified
schools, as well as approved students. We reported in April 2011 on
the need for close monitoring and oversight of foreign students, and
that some schools have attempted to exploit the immigration system by
knowingly reporting that foreign students were fulfilling their visa
requirements when they were not attending school or attending
intermittently.[Footnote 2]
Schools interested in accepting foreign students on F and M visas must
petition for SEVP certification by submitting a Form I-17 to ICE.
[Footnote 3] Once this certification is achieved, schools issue Forms
I-20 for students, which enable them to apply for nonimmigrant student
status. The Border Security Act requires DHS to confirm, every 2
years, SEVP-certified schools' continued eligibility and compliance
with the program's requirements.[Footnote 4] During the initial
petition and recertification processes, a school must provide ICE with
evidence of its legitimacy and its eligibility, such as designated
school officials' attestation statements that both the school and
officials intend to comply with program rules and regulations.
My testimony today summarizes the key findings of our report on ICE's
management of SEVP, which was publicly released last week.[Footnote 5]
Like that report, my statement will address ICE's efforts to (1)
identify and assess risks in SEVP, and (2) develop and implement
procedures to prevent and detect fraud during the initial
certification process and once schools begin accepting foreign
students. To conduct our work, we interviewed officials from each of
SEVP's seven branches and criminal investigators from the
Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU), as well as
eight ICE field offices, which allowed us to obtain their perspective
on the magnitude and risks associated with school fraud. We reviewed
publicly available information on 12 cases of school fraud dating from
2006 to 2011, which allowed us to better understand SEVP program
risks. Additionally, we reviewed standard operating procedures and
tested internal controls designed to ensure school oversight. To test
SEVP's internal controls, we selected a nongeneralizable, stratified
random sample of 50 SEVP-certified schools and reviewed their case
files to verify that evidence required for certification existed, such
as designated school officials' proof of citizenship or lawful
permanent residency. We conducted this work in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards. More detailed
information on the scope and methodology of our published report can
be found therein.
In summary, we reported that ICE does not have a process to identify
and assess risks posed by schools in SEVP. Specifically, SEVP (1) does
not evaluate program data on prior and suspected instances of school
fraud and noncompliance, and (2) does not obtain and assess
information from CTCEU and ICE field office school investigations and
outreach events. Moreover, weaknesses in ICE's monitoring and
oversight of SEVP-certified schools contribute to security and fraud
vulnerabilities. For example, ICE has not consistently implemented
internal control procedures for SEVP in the initial verification of
evidence submitted in lieu of accreditation. In addition, ICE has not
consistently followed the standard operating procedures that govern
the communication and coordination process among SEVP, CTCEU, and ICE
field offices. We recommended that ICE, among other things, identify
and assess program risks; consistently implement procedures for
ensuring schools' eligibility; and, revise its standard operating
procedure to specify which information to share among stakeholders
during criminal investigations. ICE concurred with all the
recommendations we made to address these challenges and has actions
planned or under way to address them.
ICE Does Not Have a Process to Identify and Assess Risks Posed by
Schools in SEVP:
ICE has not developed and implemented a process to identify and
analyze program risks since assuming responsibility for SEVP in 2003,
making it difficult for ICE to determine the potential security and
fraud risks across the more than 10,000 SEVP-certified schools and to
identify actions that could help mitigate these risks. SEVP and CTCEU
officials expressed concerns about the security and fraud risks posed
by schools that do not comply with program requirements. Furthermore,
various cases of school fraud have demonstrated vulnerabilities in the
management and oversight of SEVP-certified schools. We reported that
SEVP faces two primary challenges to identifying and assessing risks
posed by schools: (1) it does not evaluate program data on prior and
suspected instances of school fraud and noncompliance, and (2) it does
not obtain and assess information from CTCEU and ICE field office
school investigations and outreach events.
Evaluating SEVP information on prior and suspected cases of school
noncompliance and fraud: SEVP does not have a process to evaluate
prior and suspected cases of school fraud and noncompliance to
identify lessons learned from such cases, which could help it better
identify and assess program risks. SEVP has maintained a compliance
case log since 2005--a list of approximately 172 schools (as of
December 2011) that officials have determined to be potentially
noncompliant with program requirements. The compliance case log
represents those schools that SEVP, on the basis of leads and out-of-
cycle reviews, is monitoring for potential noncompliance. According to
SEVP officials, it has not used this list to identify and evaluate
possible trends in schools' noncompliance, although this list could
provide useful insights to SEVP to assess programwide risks. Further,
SEVP officials said that they have not looked across previous cases of
school fraud and school withdrawals to identify lessons learned on
program vulnerabilities and opportunities to strengthen internal
controls. Our analysis indicates that there are patterns in the
noncompliant schools, such as the type of school. For example, of the
172 postsecondary institutions on SEVP's December 2011 compliance case
log, about 83 percent (or 142) offer language, religious, or flight
studies, with language schools representing the highest proportion.
Without an evaluation of prior and suspected cases of school fraud and
noncompliance, ICE is not well positioned to identify and apply
lessons learned from prior school fraud cases, which could help it
identify and mitigate program risks going forward.
Obtaining information from CTCEU and ICE field offices' investigations
and outreach efforts: Based on our interviews with SEVP's Director and
other senior officials, we reported that SEVP had not established a
process to obtain lessons learned information from CTCEU's criminal
investigators. Investigators may have valuable knowledge from working
cases of school fraud in identifying and assessing program risks,
including information such as characteristics of schools that commit
fraud, how school officials exploited weaknesses in the school
certification process, and what actions ICE could take to strengthen
internal controls. For example, according to investigators in one ICE
field office, CTCEU was hampered in pursuing a criminal investigation
because SEVP officials did not obtain a signed attestation statement
within the I-17 application from a school official stating that the
official agreed to comply with rules and regulations. Another risk
area we reported on is designated school officials' access to SEVIS.
In 2011, CTCEU provided SEVP officials with a position paper
expressing concerns that designated school officials, who are not
required to undergo security background checks, are responsible for
maintaining updated information on foreign students in SEVIS.
Investigators at three of the eight field offices we interviewed said
that SEVP allowed designated school officials to maintain SEVIS access
and the ability to modify records in the system while being the
subject of an ongoing criminal investigation, despite requests from
CTCEU to terminate SEVIS access for these officials. In addition,
CTCEU collects data on its outreach efforts with schools through its
Campus Sentinel program; however, the SEVP Director stated that his
office had not obtained and analyzed reports on the results of these
visits. CTCEU initiated Campus Sentinel in 2011, which ICE operates
across all of its field offices nationwide.[Footnote 6] From October
1, 2011, through March 6, 2012, CTCEU conducted 314 outreach visits to
schools. According to CTCEU investigators, these visits provide an
opportunity to identify potential risks, including whether schools
have the capacity and resources to support programs for foreign
students. Obtaining information on lessons learned from CTCEU
investigators could help provide SEVP with additional insights on such
issues as characteristics of schools that have committed fraud and the
nature of those schools' fraudulent activities.
To address these issues, we recommended that ICE develop and implement
a process to identify and assess risks in SEVP, including evaluating
prior and suspected cases of school noncompliance and fraud to
identify potential trends, and obtaining and assessing information
from CTCEU and ICE field office investigative and outreach efforts.
DHS concurred and stated that ICE will develop and implement such a
process by later this year.
Weaknesses in ICE's Monitoring and Oversight of SEVP-Certified Schools
Contribute to Security and Fraud Vulnerabilities:
ICE has not consistently implemented existing internal control
procedures for SEVP in four areas: (1) initial verification of
evidence submitted in lieu of accreditation, (2) recordkeeping to
ensure schools' continued eligibility, (3) ongoing compliance
monitoring of school licensing and accreditation status, and (4)
certification of schools offering flight training. Regulations require
schools to establish that they are legitimate and meet other
eligibility criteria for their programs to obtain certification from
ICE.[Footnote 7] In addition, weaknesses in managing and sharing key
information with CTCEU impede SEVP's prevention and detection of
school fraud. The following summarizes these key findings and
recommendations we made to address these issues.
Initial verification of evidence submitted in lieu of accreditation:
ICE requires schools to present evidence demonstrating that the school
is legitimate and is an established institution of learning or other
recognized place of study, among other things. Non-accredited, post-
secondary schools, in particular, must provide "in lieu of" letters,
which are evidence provided by petitioning schools in lieu of
accreditation by a Department of Education-recognized accrediting
agency. ICE policy and guidance require that SEVP adjudicators render
an approval or denial of schools' petitions based on such evidence and
supporting documentation. This includes verifying that schools' claims
in the Form I-17, such as accreditation status and "in lieu of"
letters, are accurate. However, SEVP adjudicators have not verified
all "in lieu of" letters submitted to ICE by the approximately 1,250
non-accredited, post-secondary schools, as required by ICE's policy.
Rather, adjudicators decide whether to verify a letter's source and
the signatory authority of the signee based on any suspicions of the
letters' validity. Investigators at one of the eight ICE field offices
we interviewed stated SEVP officials certified at least one
illegitimate school--Tri-Valley University in California--because the
program had not verified the evidence provided in the initial
petition. In March 2012, CTCEU officials stated that several of their
ongoing investigations involve schools that provided fraudulent
evidence of accreditation or evidence in lieu of accreditation to ICE.
Consistent verification of these letters could help ICE ensure that
schools are legitimate and detect potential fraud early in the
certification process. We recommended that ICE consistently implement
procedures for ensuring schools' eligibility, including consistently
verifying "in lieu of" letters. DHS agreed and stated that SEVP
personnel have initiated mandatory verification of all "in lieu of"
letters.
Recordkeeping to ensure continued eligibility of schools: ICE's
standard operating procedures for recordkeeping require SEVP officials
to maintain records to document ongoing compliance. We reported that
ICE had not consistently maintained certain evidence of selected
schools' eligibility for the program. According to our review of a
stratified random sample of 50 SEVP-certified school case files, 30
files did not contain at least one piece of evidence required by the
program's policies and procedures. In addition, ICE was unable to
produce two schools' case files that we requested as part of our
randomly selected sample.[Footnote 8] Without the schools' information
and evidence contained in these case files, including attestation
statements and site visit reports, ICE does not have an institutional
record to provide reasonable assurance that these schools were
initially and continue to be legitimate and eligible for
certification. According to ICE officials, the school recertification
process would help address issues with incomplete and missing school
files because schools are required to resubmit all evidence required
by regulation when going through recertification. The Border Security
Act required recertification for all SEVP-certified schools by May
2004 and every 2 years thereafter.[Footnote 9] However, ICE began the
first recertification cycle in May 2010 and did not recertify all
schools during this 2-year cycle, which ended in May 2012. As of March
31, 2012, ICE reported to have recertified 1,870 schools
(approximately 19 percent of SEVP-certified schools). Given the delays
in completing recertification, ICE is not positioned to address gaps
in SEVP's case files and cannot provide reasonable assurance that
schools that were initially certified to accept foreign students are
still compliant with SEVP regulations. Thus, we recommended that ICE
establish a process to identify and address all missing school case
files, including obtaining required documentation for schools whose
case files are missing evidence. DHS concurred and stated that SEVP
plans to work with ICE Records Management to develop protocols and
actions to strengthen records management.
Ongoing compliance monitoring of school licensing and accreditation
status: ICE does not have a process to monitor the ongoing eligibility
of licensed and accredited, non-language schools enrolling foreign
students. ICE regulations require all certified schools to maintain
state licensing (or exemption) and provide various forms of evidence
to ICE supporting schools' legitimacy and eligibility. If a school
loses its state license, the school would be unable to operate legally
as a school within that state. However, ICE does not have controls to
ensure that SEVP compliance unit officials would be aware of this
issue; therefore, a school without a proper business license may
remain certified to enroll foreign students and its designated school
officials may continue to access SEVIS. We recommended that ICE
develop and implement a process to monitor state licensing and
accreditation status of all SEVP-certified schools. DHS concurred and
stated that SEVP personnel are developing procedures to ensure
frequent validation of license or accreditation information.
Certification of schools offering flight training: ICE's policies and
procedures require flight schools to have Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) Part 141 or 142 certification to be eligible for
SEVP certification; however, ICE has certified schools offering flight
training without such FAA certifications. As the federal agency
responsible for regulating safety of civil aviation in the United
States, FAA administers pilot certification (licensing) and conducts
safety oversight of pilot training. FAA's regulations for pilot
training and certification are found in three parts--Parts 61, 141,
and 142.[Footnote 10] ICE established a policy that requires Part 141
and 142 for eligibility in SEVP because FAA directly oversees these
flight schools and training centers on an ongoing basis.[Footnote 11]
We reported identifying 434 SEVP-certified schools that, as of
December 2011, offer flight training to foreign students.[Footnote 12]
However, 167 (38 percent) of these flight training providers do not
have FAA Part 141 or 142 certification. SEVP senior officials
acknowledged that all SEVP-certified schools offering flight training
do not have FAA Part 141 or 142 certification even though the program
requires it. ICE indicated that in most of the cases, it may have
initially certified flight schools with Part 141 or 142 certification
but the schools allowed their FAA certification to expire, and ICE did
not identify or take compliance action against them. ICE is taking
actions to address noncompliant flight schools as of May 2012,
including notifying all SEVP-certified schools that do not have the
required FAA certification that they must re-obtain the certification.
Moreover, SEVP officials stated that they plan to coordinate with FAA
to determine which schools have not met the requirements and will take
withdrawal actions against them. While these are positive steps, we
reported that SEVP had not yet established target time frames for
implementing and completing these planned actions. Because ICE has
certified or maintained certification of schools that provide flight
training without the required FAA certification and oversight, the
program is vulnerable to security and fraud risks. Thus, we
recommended that ICE establish target time frames for notifying SEVP-
certified flight schools that do not have the required FAA
certification that they must re-obtain FAA certification. DHS
concurred and stated that SEVP is consulting with FAA to develop
target time frames.
Coordination among SEVP, CTCEU, and ICE field offices: ICE has not
consistently followed the standard operating procedures that govern
the communication and coordination process among SEVP, CTCEU, and ICE
field offices. Specifically, these procedures delineate roles and
responsibilities for criminal investigations and establish protocols
for SEVP taking administrative actions against schools during and
following a criminal investigation. In some instances, SEVP management
has not followed CTCEU requests to take or cease administrative
actions and has not referred potentially criminal cases to CTCEU in
accordance with ICE's procedures. By strengthening coordination and
communication between SEVP and CTCEU, ICE could better ensure that
SEVP, CTCEU, and ICE field offices understand which information to
share regarding whether to take administrative actions during criminal
investigations and that clear criteria exist for referring cases from
CTCEU based upon potentially criminal behavior. Thus, we recommended
that ICE revise its standard operating procedure to specify which
information to share among stakeholders during criminal
investigations. DHS concurred and stated that SEVP will work with
CTCEU and ICE field personnel to make the necessary revisions. We also
recommended that ICE establish criteria for referring cases of a
potentially criminal nature from SEVP to CTCEU. ICE agreed and stated
that SEVP will work with CTCEU to improve this process.
Chairman Schumer, Ranking Member Cornyn, and members of the
subcommittee, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased
to answer any questions that you may have at this time.
Contacts and Acknowledgments:
For further information regarding this testimony, please contact
Rebecca Gambler at (202) 512-8777, or gamblerr@gao.gov. In addition,
contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public
Affairs may be found on the last page of this statement. Individuals
who made key contributions to this testimony are Kathryn Bernet,
Assistant Director; Frances Cook; Elizabeth Dunn; Anthony C.
Fernandez; David Greyer; and, Lara Miklozek.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] GAO, Student and Exchange Visitor Program: DHS Needs to Assess
Risks and Strengthen Oversight Functions, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-572] (Washington, D.C.: June 18,
2012).
[2] GAO, Overstay Enforcement: Additional Mechanisms for Collecting,
Assessing, and Sharing Data Could Strengthen DHS's Efforts but Would
Have Costs, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-411]
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 15, 2011).
[3] F visas are for academic study at 2-and 4-year colleges and
universities and other academic institutions. M visas are for
nonacademic study at institutions, such as vocational and technical
schools. As of March 2012, schools applying for initial certification
were required to pay DHS $1,700, as well as a $655 site visit fee per
campus.
[4] 8 U.S.C. § 1762.
[5] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-572].
[6] Funded with SEVP fee collections, the program aims to foster
relationships between ICE law enforcement officials and schools
through on-site visits and information sessions at conferences and to
make school officials more aware of recent investigations of school
fraud.
[7] 8 C.F.R. § 214.3(a)(3) states that a school, to be eligible for
certification, must establish that it is bona fide. For the purposes
of this report, we use the term "legitimate" synonymously with the
term "bona fide."
[8] Since ICE was unable to produce two schools' case files, our
results include the 48 files that we were able to analyze.
[9] See 8 U.S.C. § 1762. The statute requires the review of
institutions and other entities authorized to enroll or sponsor
certain nonimmigrants.
[10] Federal aviation regulations are found under title 14 of the
United States Code of Federal Regulations (14 C.F.R. pts. 61, 141, and
142).
[11] Part 61 relates to individual providers/instructors that are not
subject to direct FAA oversight beyond the initial certification and
subsequent renewal of each flight instructor's certificate. Parts 141
and 142 outline requirements for flight schools and training centers.
FAA oversees these Part 141 and 142 flight schools and training
centers with annual inspections and by reviewing and approving the
schools' facilities and programs.
[12] This is a relatively small percentage of providers nationwide
that offer flight training.
[End of section]
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